The Poisoners

XI

Getting her out of there promised to be something of a job. First, I tried to pinpoint her location, to see just what I'd be getting myself into by going after her. I couldn't spot the area at the foot of the overhanging rocks from where the pleading, disembodied voice seemed to come. Well, that figured. If she could have been seen, Willy would have seen her; and disposed of her.

I glanced around warily. Apparently Beverly had managed to survive the crash and conceal herself from her pursuer, which was nice, but if Willy was a patient man, he could be waiting around to catch her coming out of hiding when she thought herself safe. I had an uneasy feeling of being watched…

"Help!" the voice called from below, as the noise of the surf subsided briefly. "Please don't go away, whoever you are! Help me!"

To hell with Willy. "Hold on, down there," I shouted. "I'll be right with you."

It was an easy promise to make. Living up to it posed a few problems. There was obviously no sense in my diving heedlessly and heroically off the rocks to join her. That would just make two of us at the bottom of the junior-grade cliff, neither knowing a way back up to the top. Besides, I'm not much for making twenty-foot dives into unknown waters off an unknown coast. In fact, I'm a mediocre swimmer; but clearly I was going to have to exercise my limited talents in that direction whether I wanted to or not.

Exploring hastily, I found a crevice some fifty yards off to the right that led down to a kind of shelf less than a foot above the water. As I undressed, I looked around dubiously once more. I'd be in a poor position for self-defense if Willy should appear on the rocky shore above me while I was paddling around in the surf in my shorts. Well, apparently it had to be done, and I was the only guy around to do it.

Taking my gun, I made my way down into the crack. The breeze off the sea was chilly enough to remind me that it was too damn early in the spring for any sensible person to get wet all over in anything but a nice warm bath-well, a hot shower, maybe, but I'm a tub man myself, when I can find a tub long enough. I hid the gun among the rocks down there and approached the launching pad. A wave broke into the entrance and washed about my ankles, letting me know that the water was even colder than the air, but there was nothing to do but go into it, so I went. The shock was breathtaking. I stroked clumsily off to the left, hoping the exercise would warm me. It didn't.

I found her huddled in a shallow cave, little more than a niche washed out by the waves, at the bottom of the rocky point on which I'd been standing when I heard her voice. The sea sloshed right into the little hollow, drenching her with metronome regularity where she clung to a stone outcropping. I got an impression of a dead-white face, tangled hair, and torn clothing that streamed like seaweed from a small, half-naked body, but at least she was alive enough to watch me hopefully as I came in for a landing.

She fried to say something; but the roar of the surf blotted it out. I was too busy keeping myself from being washed back out to sea to listen, anyway. It was a tougher rescue operation than the previous one in which we'd participated, I reflected grimly. I pried her loose, between waves, shoved her out of there, and dove after her. She started swimming, but feebly and ineffectually. I got hold of some cloth that ripped when the strain of the next wave came on it; then I got a fistful that didn't. Kicking desperately, paddling one-handed, I managed to tow her clear of the rocks. Some time later, I boosted her onto the shelf from which I'd come-with, I was glad to note, some token help from her. At least she was still present and voting.

Climbing up beside her, with no help from her, was harder than it should have been for a healthy man in good condition. I dragged her out of the reach of the waves and crouched there, panting and dripping and trying to keep my teeth from chattering. After a little while, I remembered the gun and found it. If Willy was lying in wait for us above, I was once more in a position to shoot back, even if my chances of hitting anything were slight, the way I was shivering.

Beverly rolled over weakly to look at me through the hair that veiled her face. I reached out and parted the wet strands with a forefinger, so that I could look in as well as she could look out. Her lips moved stiffly.

"Mr. Helm!" she whispered. "I d-didn't really recog… recognize…" She couldn't finish. She just curled up into a ball and hugged herself, shaking with cold.

"Are you hurt?" I asked.

It was a stupid question. What I'd meant to ask, I guess, was if she was too badly hurt to proceed under her own power.

"Sure I'm hurt… I hurt all over," she breathed. Her voice was stronger and steadier. "Or I did before I f-froze to d-death." She made an effort to sit up, succeeded with my help, and went on: "But I don't seem to have b-broken anything ess-ess-essential." The shakes hit her again, so violently that she could hardly get the last word out.

"Can you make that?" I asked, after the spasm had passed. I indicated the cleft up which we still had to climb.

"I… I think so, Mr. Helm. Matt…

"What?"

Her greenish-hazel eyes regarded me with disconcerting steadiness out of her pale, wet face. "You're b-beautiful," she said softly. "You're the p-prettiest man I ever saw, even if your knees are b-b-bony. I'd given up, I guess. I'd have d-d-died there if you hadn't come after me. Th-thanks."

"Go to hell," I said. "If you're strong enough to make speeches you're strong enough to start climbing."

I still had the uneasy sensation that someone was watching and, at the top, I checked the surroundings carefully, gun in hand, but there was no Willy in sight. That was fine with me. I reached down to help Beverly over the last rocks, left her catching her breath, and went over to get her purse and shoes. I brought them back and dropped them beside her.

Then I went to my own clothes, mopped myself off a bit with my undershirt, and tossed the damp garment to her for similar employment. I got dressed except for my jacket. Its warmth tempted me strongly, but there are times when a man has to prove, to himself and to others, that he really is a gentleman at heart, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Besides, I needed a way to show-call it a symbol-that I really was very glad to have found her alive. It was a weight off my conscience, or a stain off my soul, or something.

Tucking my gun back under my waistband, I carried the coat over to where she was standing, a little unsteadily, vaguely rubbing at her hair with my undershirt. It wasn't very nice of me, under the circumstances, but I couldn't help pausing to get the full effect. It was pretty spectacular. I'd encountered a lot of beat-up characters in my undercover career, but I'd seldom met a lady who was so literally in rags.

Her neat little wool pantsuit, never designed for hardship, had disintegrated into a scarecrow collection of flaps and loops and pennants of torn green cloth, sodden and dark with seawater. One arm and leg were almost totally bare, and sizeable anatomical areas were raggedly exposed elsewhere. Apparently, the dive from the doomed convertible had scraped most of the clothing, and a good deal of skin, from her right side. The hasty scramble down the slope, and the ocean swim, had completed the job of demolition all around. She was so tattered it was almost funny.

She stopped drying her hair and glanced at me in a puzzled way, as if wondering why I was staring. Then she looked down at herself, becoming suddenly aware of, and aghast at, her shipwrecked appearance.

"God, I'm a clown!" she gasped. "I'm a… a disaster area! I didn't realize… Matt, what am I going to do? I can't show myself anywhere like this!"

"We'll get you some clothes," I said. "Meanwhile, here's something to keep you warm-"

"No, wait a minute, please."

She tossed aside the undershirt she'd been using as a towel, struggled out of the clinging remains of the jacket, and untangled herself from the trailing remnants of the pants. Rolling the garments into a ball, she walked gingerly, barefooted, to the edge of the rocks, and pitched them into the sea. She came back to me, no longer a comic figure in flapping rags, just a pretty girl who'd got herself kind of wet and scratched and dirty, in a costume that now consisted of a sleeveless white turtleneck jersey and a pair of brief white nylon pants-little more than she'd been wearing in our abortive seduction scene of the previous evening. The scanty outfit wasn't clean, dry, or even wholly intact, but it wasn't a cruel joke.

"I'll take that coat now, thanks," she said.

I hesitated, frowning at the blood-caked lacerations that seemed to reach almost from shoulder to elbow, and from hip to knee, although it was a little hard to tell how much was injury and how much was just clotted gore.

"First you'd better let me have a look at that arm-"

"There's nothing you can do about it here, so why make like Dr. Kildare?" she said a bit sharply. "I'll live, if you don't keep me standing in this wind all day."

"Sure," I said, wrapping the coat around her. "Put on your shoes and let's go. Here's your purse."

As an afterthought, I went back and picked up the wet undershirt she'd thrown aside. It might come in handy for bandages or something; besides, if I left it there, the Mexican authorities might think it was a clue. When I caught up with her, she'd paused by the wrecked convertible. She reached in to take the keys, still in the lock, and dropped them into her Mexican-leather purse.

I grinned, regarding the battered hulk. "What's the matter, are you afraid somebody's going to stick the wheels back on and drive off with it?"

She didn't smile. "Besides the car keys, there's also my apartment key, and the key to a safe-deposit box, if I ever dare go back to get what's in them. Like a nice mink coat and some jewelry…" She grimaced, and frowned at what was left of her car. "Do you know, that damn thing almost killed me?" she said in a wondering voice. "Wouldn't you think they'd make them so you could get out of them in a pinch?"

"Exactly what happened?"

She shook her head quickly. "Not here, Mart. Wait till we're safe in your car with the heater going."

We made it up to the highway without any further trouble. As I unlocked the door of the sedan, the first traffic of the day came by, but it was no Jeepster, just a Chevy pickup truck with the cab crammed full of assorted Mexicans, adults and children, who stared at us so curiously that I was afraid they'd spotted the wreck below. Then I saw that they were looking at Beverly's wet hair and abbreviated costume, which apparently they took for a bathing suit.

They drove past, laughing at the crazy gringos who couldn't wait till summer for an early-morning swim.